Kristin Scott Thomas Faced Her Worst Nightmare

As Oscar season approaches, Kristin Scott Thomas is getting early buzz for her powerful performance in I’ve Loved You So Long. In the subtitled drama, Scott joins the ranks of actresses who’ve gotten attention for putting their beauty on hold. In the film, she portrays a woman trying to put her life together after serving 15 years in prison for killing her young son. Kristin has three children of her own, Hannah, 20, Joseph, 17, and Georges, 8.

On the challenges of this role: “You become a bit of a masochist as an actress because you’re going in there thinking, ‘This will be great. I really want to get my teeth into something.’ But then it actually hurts like hell. Every day I would sort of just unzip and see what happened. And I didn’t realize how harrowing it would be.”

On if having three kids of her own made the role tougher: “This crime that she’s committed is so frightening. Oh God, it doesn’t even bear thinking about. It presses a button that is almost unbearable — the loss of a child is an unthinkable thing. As a mother, it did really hit home with me. Every day you have to go to the set and face your worst nightmare.”

On how she felt about skipping hair and make-up for this role: “It’s not a big deal. We wanted a kind of naked look. The director, Philippe Claudel, told me he wanted to see all the years of incarceration tattooed on my face and part of that was having a sort of grayish complexion and colorless hair. Believe me, it didn’t bother me not to have to worry about being glamorous.”

On if Hollywood puts too much attention on looks: “It’s not just Hollywood. When somebody walks in a room and you look at them you do, whether you like it or not, you’re making judgments about that person just by the way they’re dressed. It’s true. We all do it. That’s why we all buy too many clothes, which I think is awful.”

Yeah, and I agree Hollywood and media play a part/has influence on our body images, it’s sad really. Mostly normal (outside Hollywood) people will realize that being a typical cookie cutter- blonde, big boobs and tanned arent realistic. Plus skinny- minny isnt a healthy way to live but unfortunately some people cant differentiate that which leads to bigger issues.